Pittman-Lewis fight must end, says Boyle
Sam Edmund, Shaun Phillips and Ron Reed
09feb06
TRACK legend Raelene Boyle has slammed feuding athletes Jana Pittman and Tamsyn Lewis, demanding they bury their public stoush before the Commonwealth Games.
Marathon great Steve Moneghetti backed Boyle, saying the sport was suffering.
Boyle, a seven-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and triple Olympic silver medallist, said it was time for authorities to intervene.
“I think the powers that be should step in and say, ‘C’mon girls, think about the big picture and not just yourselves’,” she said.
“Tamsyn seems to be the one continuing it. She needs to stop and try and focus on doing something at these Games.”
The ill-feeling between the former best friends dates back to the 2004 Athens Olympics when Lewis questioned Pittman’s buildup to the Games and the drama around her campaign.
Pittman responded by saying she would prefer to be known for her performance on the track rather than as a “bikini babe”.
She was referring to a photo shoot Lewis did for a men’s magazine.
On Monday, Lewis referred to her 400m rival on radio as a bitch after Pittman said there was no competition in the event.
The flare-up has divided the athletics community with less than seven weeks before the Games.
Lewis and Pittman will be teammates in Australia’s 4 x 400m relay team.
They were part of Australia’s gold-medal 400m quartet in Manchester four years ago.
Pittman would not comment yesterday.
Boyle said the bitter slanging match would hurt the athletics team unless it was stamped out quickly.
“It’s not good for the sport. You would never see this in swimming,” she said.
"What they need to do is let their feet do the talking and stop the verbal, and as for Tamsyn talking about it on air, maybe it keeps you in a job, I don’t know.
"Get them to focus on the Games.
"I don’t think it’s a necessarily bad thing for Jana because she’ll get her back up and she’ll make sure she doesn’t let Tamsyn beat her.
“Jana is the more talented of the two girls.”
Moneghetti, mayor of the Commonwealth Games village, said the women needed a good talking to, if not necessarily in the same room.
"If this happened at the village I’d pull them in and say, ‘Look, this is damaging the sport. If you want to have this fight, don’t have it in public because it makes our sport look bad’.
"If they don’t get on in a month’s time, I don’t care, but right now is not a good time to let the public know you don’t get on.
"We’re in a fantastic phase with the biggest team ever announced yet the focus is on this fight.
“They’ve got to say the Commonwealth Games and the athletics team are bigger than us, let’s get on with the job.”
Moneghetti said Lewis should drop media commitments such as the Triple-M program where she made the bitch comment now that she was a member of the team.
Lewis’s mother Carolyn said she regretted her daughter’s choice of one word, but otherwise backed her to the hilt.
“The only thing I’ve counselled Tamsyn on . . . is that she said the word b-i-t-c-h,” Mrs Lewis said.
“Other than that I think she is a lovely daughter.”
Mrs Lewis, who represented Australia in the high jump at the 1962 Commonwealth Games, said it would motivate Lewis. “Tamsyn is like her father (Greg, an Olympic and Commonwealth sprinter). It will stir her on,” she said.
But Lewis’s former coach Jackie Byrnes wasn’t as glowing.
“This started when Tamsyn was 15 and now she’s 27,” Byrnes said.
Olympic motivator Laurie Lawrence said he was willing to try to sort out the feud. “They’ve got to lay their cards on the table,” Lawrence said.
“Both girls are terrific kids, but things can get out of hand.”
Olympic legend Cathy Freeman wouldn’t be drawn on the matter, saying both were great athletes and she wished them the best of luck.
But the 400m gold medallist revealed she would act as a mentor for Lewis as the Games draw near.
“Tamsyn Lewis’s mum actually asked me to warm up with her daughter,” Freeman said.
“I think the idea is to just help her and be a calming influence for her.”